Contractor sues county over delayed payment

MARK MORAN / THE CITIZENS’ VOICE Blooming Glen Contractors Inc. says it entered into a contract with Luzerne County to repair the bridge at Chase and Hillside roads, above, and another bridge on Hillside Road, below, in Jackson Township after they were damaged by flooding, according to the lawsuit. The repairs were completed in 2012.

The job has been done for well over a year, but Luzerne County has yet to fulfill its end of the deal, a Montgomery County contractor alleged Wednesday.

Skippack-based Blooming Glen Contractors Inc. on Wednesday sued the county government, alleging officials have failed to pay nearly $150,000 for road work. Within hours of the lawsuit being filed — and after The Citizens’ Voice inquired about the lack of payment — Jackson Township supervisors reported that about $60,000 due to them for moving a sewer line as part of the same project had been delivered in full.

“This has gone on for three years, at least,” said John Jay Wilkes Jr., chairman of the Jackson Township board of supervisors. “It’s amazing how things happen.”

The lawsuit alleges Luzerne County has repeatedly refused to pay Blooming Glen a $147,468 balance on a $1.47 million job completed in December 2012. The suit alleges the county breached its contract and unjustly benefitted from the contractor’s work, and seeks the balance of the contract as well as attorney’s fees, interest and other penalties.

The job was part of a bridge repair project to replace two structures damaged by flooding, according to the lawsuit.

A bridge at Chase and Hillside roads and another on Hillside Road were damaged during flooding and had been shored up for a time with temporary repairs, Wilkes said. But both were in need of replacement, and Blooming Glen’s parent company, H&K Group, got the contract for the bridges, he said.

The lawsuit says the county entered a contract with Blooming Glen on Dec. 7, 2009, to build culverts, remove the existing structures and rebuild the road. The tab came out to $1.47 million when work was completed in December 2012, but as of Wednesday the county had only paid $1.33 million, despite repeated invoices, the lawsuit alleges.

Wilkes said that replacing the bridge on Hillside Road required the crew to move a municipal sewer line out of the way, and the county entered a contract with Jackson Township to split half the cost of that project.

The crew replaced several hundred feet of sewer line and installed extra manholes, but months passed without Jackson Township seeing the roughly $60,000 the county promised for its share, he said.

Wilkes emailed Luzerne County Council Chairman Rick Morelli on Feb. 24, saying Chase Road was rife with potholes and that the payment for the sewer work had not been resolved. Morelli asked county Manager Robert Lawton to set up a meeting to discuss the issues. But by March 13, Wilkes sent Morelli another email saying that he had yet to hear from Lawton.

After Morelli indicated township officials could raise the issue at a county council meeting, they landed a meeting with county administration and left under the impression the payment was forthcoming, Wilkes said.

Despite repeated inquiries, Jackson Township did not receive the reimbursement until Wednesday afternoon — after the lawsuit was filed and The Citizens’ Voice called county officials seeking comment about the delay.

A message to county solicitor David Pedri was returned by assistant county solicitor Steve Menn, who said he thought the issue involved some “confusion” on the part of Jackson Township supervisors as well as Blooming Glen. Although he said he didn’t know the specifics of the project, Menn said the county frequently uses money from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for such projects and that the delay was likely due to a holdup on state funding.

Menn said he would be unable to verify his hunch Wednesday afternoon. In a subsequent phone interview, Lawton declined to comment on whether the holdup was in fact due to a delay in funding from PennDOT, deferring comment to county lawyers.

But Wilkes said the mention of state money Wednesday was the first he had heard of it during months of the township seeking reimbursement.

“I never actually heard PennDOT brought into this, to be honest with you,” Wilkes said. “I believe if PennDOT was brought into this, we certainly would have approached them.”

The county, which is $400 million in debt, has struggled to pay its bills in recent months. At the end of last year, county council approved a maximum-allowable 8 percent tax hike and signed off on an $18 million loan just to cover the county’s bills and employees until tax revenue began flowing this year.

But then extensive debate among council over reducing the tax increase, which ended with taxes unchanged, significantly delayed property tax bills from being sent — and revenue from flowing.

Last week, Brian Swetz, the budget and financial services division head, reported to council that in the first quarter the county had collected only $10.3 million in tax revenue, compared with $26.5 million at the same point in 2013. The county incurred $3.8 million more in expenses than in revenue received, he said.

570-821-2058, @cvjimhalpin

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